It’s been three years since Jeff Howe coined the term “crowdsourcing” in his Wired article “The Rise of Crowdsourcing.” The term, which describes an online, distributed problem solving and production model, is most famously represented in the business operations of companies like Threadless and InnoCentive and in contests like the Goldcorp Challenge and the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl Contest.
(via CFCM.)

Governor Schwarzenegger launched the www.MyIdea4CA.com website for Twitter users to share and discuss their ideas to move California forward. The MyIdea4CA Twitter Forum was initiated to extend a popular conversation that began in June of 2009 on Twitter when Governor Schwarzenegger called for public participation for new ideas on the state budget.

As government cuts back their budgets, consultants, polling data, and combined with the need for transparency we will begin to see more crowdsourcing projects more and more. It not only creates a way to get real time results of public opinion, but also provides engagement strategies to connect with the public. The real question is the quality of this feedback?

This is not scientific nor a professional response, however it is true public response and engagement. The Public and the European Union has begun working with the public to perfect this approach.

Echoing the Open Government initiatives currently underway at the White House, the process is beginning with an open brainstorming session to identify and evaluate a range of ways in which EU governments can harness the emerging power of the web to transform European public services.

Debate graph on these ideas here: http://debategraph.org/flash/fv.aspx?r=20101

The potential is huge. The trend of such approaches have already caught on. With such traction, do you feel that decisions will now be interpreted as the popular sentiment? Does access and knowledge of social media provide greater access to policy makers?

Government transparency in the form of social media is a hotly contested issue.  Some say that blocking employee access to social media sites is great news as taxpayer money is not being wasted on using Twitter on White House time.  Of course this logic is slightly flawed for those of us living in the digital age can access Twitter via our mobile phones.  However, the message being sent by invoking this policy is strong; social media is vital on the campaign trail but dangerous when governing.

Can social networks be harmful to government?  Worse yet do they pose a security risk?

Before delving into those questions, lets take a look at identity manipulations issues on Twitter.  Now when I joined Twitter I used my favorite screen name and linked it to my email and full name.  I am who I  say I am.  This is not always the case on Twitter, especially where celebrities are involved.  Twitter profile fakes for celebrities such as Emma Watson, the Dhali Lama, and Tony LaRussa have gained huge followings.   In an effort to delegitimize these impostors Twitter has created verified account status, which can only be obtained by the celebrity or their agent.

In a more serious case, Michigan-based public relations firm Tanner Friedman was “brandjacked” when it found in March that a Twitter account, under the username @TannerFriedman, had existed for two months without the firm’s knowledge. It filed a lawsuit against the account owner, and, in June, the judge ordered Twitter to reveal the account owner’s IP address. The address was traced back to rival PR firm Marx Layne. Tanner Friedman eventually regained control of the account.

The above demonstrates how easy it is to create false accounts, aliases, and infiltrate competitors through Twitter.  The Federal Court in Michigan forced Twitter to produce confidential user information to determine who was falsely using the competitor’s name on Twitter, which sets a precedence for whistle-blower Twitter users. Should a court be able to force Twitter to produce this type of information?  In extreme cases like the protests in Iran, what would have happened to all of those people protesting against their government if Twitter would have been forced to give up their account information?  On the other hand, Tanner Friedman’s brand and good name were being fraudulently used on the social web, surely the person behind those false statements should be enjoined to stop their activities.

Given this information, is Twitter, Facebook and other social networks bad for government…do they pose national security risks?  Clearly if used wrong, these sites can cause an internal raukus; however, I’m not sure they will be the cause for leaking state secrets.

Social media is another mode of communication just like email, the telephone, and text messaging.  Social networks allow users to communicate quickly and attach media to their posts.  Social media can be used for good and act as a government watchdog.  Anyone who has worked for a government entity knows that their office has complete monitoring control over their PC, so posting false, dangerous, or inappropriate information onto your social network at work is NOT a good idea (no matter where you work, but especially if you happen to be at 1600 Pennsylvania).

Further, instead of banning social media sites the White House should invoke stricter usage policies  requiring employees to disclose their social network user names and agree to allow their employer access to their IP address and other registration information from social networks.

Employees can of course simply use their mobile devices to tweet and communicate from work but the message being sent from the White House by banning this technology is paranoid and restrictive.  Smart work place policies for government entities will keep employees from abusing social media tools and send a message of openness and transparency.

What are your thoughts?  What are your work place policies in regards to social media networking?

My first thought upon hearing this was, “I thought we learned our lesson with intelligent agency communication failures?” According to Norman Ornstein at Roll Call there are serious turf wars in our government, which contributes to inefficiency and poor policy making. So how do we solve difficulties in finding and sharing information?

Enter, the age of social media and “pedias.”

Intellipedia, the first government “pedia” was introduced in 2004 by a CIA analyst. Intellipedia is a proprietary, Wikipedia-like system set up to enable 16 separate intelligence-related agencies, from the CIA to the FBI, the National Security Agency and various entities in the Department of Defense, to share information, data, theories, insights and ideas in an interactive fashion, and to edit the entries that are put onto the network. There are now tens of thousands of articles on Intellipedia, with hundreds added every week.

Intellipedia is shear brilliance, this simple tool is connecting people across agencies, which would most likely never meet, and allows them to share information vital to our national security. For example, data uncovered by one analyst may be shot down by another, reducing the likelihood of dry holes or actions taken on the basis of faulty intelligence.

For Congress a “pedia” can be created for legislation and be a place where staffers and Members can share policy information.

In lieu of merging agencies and commissions, “pedias” can be created as a medium for information exchange. Social media is allowing staffers, analysts, committee persons, and citizens to participate in policy making. This is not only smart government but good democracy.

In a world of instant communication, we cannot afford for our government to fall behind. Information is everywhere, social media helps us find and utilize the right information. More importantly social media allows us to carry on conversations about security and policy involving any subject matter.

We would love your feedback on the idea of connecting Capitol Hill through social media tools. Does centralizing information through “pedias” work or create more headaches?